Pages

Friday, January 21, 2011

Alfred Hitchcock - The Manxman (1929) (DVD)

from imdb:

Hitchcock's last silent is totally proficient, equal or superior to countless contemporary Hollywood romantic triangles (here, a fisherman, a lawyer and the publican's daughter). The story is less than satisfactory since the lawyer gets the girl pregnant at a time when he believed his rival was dead; no one acknowledges this vital extenuating circumstance or explains it to the fisherman in the final denouement. But what's really disappointing is that the three principals (and the girl's father) are virtually the only roles in the film, and their characters are developed strictly from the necessity of the plot. There are few Hitchcock touches, either character or visual. There are no minor characters or bits of business that demonstrate the sharp observation and sly humor that is in just about all of Hitchcock's other films of the period, and it's therefore one of his most impersonal films.